Tag: NEA ambassador program

Last week in my email I saw a post from NEA about a woman named Helen Piña who described what it’s like for her to have eczema with her job. I was intrigued, as eczema (specifically topical steroid withdrawal) has completely derailed my initial career plans, and because Helen is the first person I relate to whose flares got crazy in the early 20s. I can definitely relate to her about causing little clouds of skin snow to rain down when leaving a spot (ugh), as well as trying to figure out when to scratch but also staying mindful to not end up doing it randomly while working. My catch was that I worked as a physical therapy aide and so I had to do be in close quarters with patients, leading them through exercises and demonstrating activities, so I really didn’t feel comfortable having so a degree of skin issues around them. Physical therapy school was even more difficult in that regard because then I did have to physically manipulate patients (can you imagine trying to stretch someone’s hamstring and them seeing little skin flakes falling off of you?). Personally, I always felt incredibly self conscious about it as it also seems like a health risk. Needless to say, it did factor into my decision to leave that field. That being said, I find it extremely encouraging to hear about how people make it work, keep their careers, and find an new normalcy in their day-to-day.

Nowadays I have been inspired to find other lines of work to that fit my skin too. But more on that another day. Also there are many inspiration people that created careers from having eczema or having someone in their life who does. Take for example, Abby Lai (a holistic nutritionist and creator of Prime Physique Nutrition) or Karen Fischer (nutritionist and writer of The Eczema Detox and other books), and many others.

Speaking of day-to-day life. I signed up a while back to be on the mailing list for the National Eczema Association’s Ambassador program, which means that when the opportunity arises, I am wiling to go meet with various people involved in making policies around eczema to voice my own experiences in hopes of shaping the policies directly around patient input (if you’re interested, here’s the link to the NEA ambassador page). A few days ago an email came through asking for ambassadors who were interested in going to Chicago (with a stipend, food and lodging covered, and travel expenses covered up to a certain amount). I think it’s amazing that the NEA is acting so efficiently as a liaison between the people experiencing eczema and the people and organizations who are doing the research and making the policies that will affect the people with eczema. It feels like their liaisons will definitely create a more lasting impact on the treatment of this condition as it is hitting the nail on the head on more than one front (with the afflicted and with the policy makers). And also it’s awesome because when are you offered a chance to have basically an all-expense-paid trip to go and try and change the policies that impact your day to day life?